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Gaming on an i7? you're doing it wrong

Since a cpu is likely to last 2-3 years, in the past I've always gone with the i7 (920, 4770k), for the small price difference (90£ across 2+ years) you might as well get the better cpu.
 
Well, I've only recent bought my i7 970 - second hand - and its noticeably better at GTA V than my friends new build i5 when running GTA V , you get what you pay for I guess, were the i5 so good surely gamers wouldn't opt for the more expensive CPU, looking at sigs around here, plenty seem to think the same.
 
Saying that "i5 is the way to go" is a rather stupid statement. CPUs usually have a lot longer lifespan than GPUs so the price difference isn't that big considering how long you're likely to keep a given chip. Personally, I don't plan to part with my 4790k for quite some time and a lot of sources indicate that i7s really do handle games better, even though the difference isn't that pronounced in most titles. It's always better to have a bit of extra grunt, especially having in mind all the shoddy ports and current-gen consoles' architecture.

"i5 is the way to go if you're on a budget" would be the correct way of putting this.
 
Bit late to tell me "I am doing it wrong" given that OCUK told me it was a gaming bundle... Dam you OCUK and your miss leading propaganda.

However, I would agree that i5 might give the same performance in many games ATM...

I came from a i7 860, so the improvement was quite impressive.... for what I paid. Yay for OCUK!!!
 
Simple way to test guys, if you own an i7, disable ht in bios. And in some cases you may need to downclock a bit too. Effectively turns your i7 into an i5. Two chips in one, good value for money that.:D
 
Just realised my i7 930 is 5 years old and still going strong , I've only had to update the gpu twice, so I would definitely recommend paying more and getting the bigger better processor :)
 
Had i bought an i5 instead of an i7 920 i would have had to upgrade a while ago. The extra threads are what gives my chip a longer life. Going i7 saves you money in the long run and i think what i paid back then over an i5 has been worth every extra penny.
 
I remember when battlefield 3 had issues for a time where it stuttered on my system if hyper threading was on. The ONLY way to fix it for a while was to turn off hyper threading in the bios.
This is the only time I have ever turned my i7 2600k into an 'i5'. Sometimes the extra threads of an i7 help enormously like in crisis 3 as mentioned, so this is a non thread really.
 
Had i bought an i5 instead of an i7 920 i would have had to upgrade a while ago. The extra threads are what gives my chip a longer life. Going i7 saves you money in the long run and i think what i paid back then over an i5 has been worth every extra penny.

What do you play that requires 8 thread on old ass 920.
 
What do you play that requires 8 thread on old ass 920.

I play a lot of mmo's which usually require a lot of cpu grunt. I can't be sure if they are using all the threads as i have not checked. All i know is the cpu is enough to push my 290 along to 100% gpu usage. In 3dmark the physics score i get at 4.0ghz is still respectable especially when compared to more modern i5's and amd's best. It might be old ass but with Cpu's not moving the performance along much it's still wearing well.
 
I played through crysis 3 recently with max settings (SMAA low) on my i5 750 @4GHZ and 290 and 95% of the time, it was very smooth with good FPS, it was only really the very first part (at the harbour) where it was a complete stutter fest.

I'm also playing gta 5 on mostly max settings (aside from grass, shadows, MSAA and the advanced graphics) and getting 50+FPS with a frame latency of 15-20ms 90% of the time.

More or less the same for the witcher 3 too, no hairworks, foilage & shadows set to medium.

Of course, an i7 860/920 would most likely give higher min. fps in most games but overall the i5 750 is still holding up very well.
 
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i have still got my i7 930 and i have been through a few GPUs as well , however im upgrading to a Z97/ i7 4790K shortly.

I had a 4870 Toxic , 6850 , 7850 , R9 285 , and now i got a 290X today.
 
the main thing i remember upgrading from i5 750 was the boot up times
i guess bcos the new bios or whatever
had to wait 30seconds before even started loading windows
new ones are in windows in 10 seconds

i think the 750 would still be fine for most games
depends how u use ur pc tho, for some people i7 isnt enough and 6core is better with streaming and doing other stuff
 
I play BF4 multiplayer with 64 players, 2 r9 290's on an i5 at 4K, no stutter or bottleneck at all. I don't see much point in an i7 at all, maybe at a lower resolution it might help but I doubt it, and I have 2 AMD cards which have higher CPU overhead than NVIDIA.
 
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